


Pig-Pen Palace

by Etnoe



Category: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Millefiore Arc, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 02:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3593715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chrome of ten years later returns to Kokuyo Land - and Xanxus follows her. With him staring at the wreck of her home, she finds herself all too aware that she might not really have changed from the girl who first lived there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pig-Pen Palace

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a fic meme where the requester gives a location for a pairing to kiss in. Prompt: Katekyo Hitman Reborn! - Chrome/Xanxus, Kokuyo Land
> 
> This takes place TYL, post-Millefiore arc, and has the characters in an established relationship. The idea is that Chrome and Xanxus came across each other at some point during Chrome's break from the Vongola and formed a relationship (and being Xanxus, he didn't feel the need to let Tsuna know anything about the errant Vongola Mist Guardian, so everyone aside from the Varia still thought she was totally off the radar).

* * *

  
Heavy footsteps sounded up the stairs - familiar ones, too close to head off before they entered the room.

Chrome scrambled to her feet and away from the niche in the wall she'd tucked herself into, as she remembered how it had been to sleep there, years ago. Suddenly she felt as acutely awkward as she'd been when she first lived at Kokuyo Land as a near-nothing scrap of child: It came back easily. She nearly dropped the bag in her hand in clumsy haste, and as last resort went very still.

Xanxus cast a shadow on the floor as he stepped into the doorway. There were rustling sounds as he shifted to take a look around, and he said with a scoff, "How long is this going to take?"

He wasn't supposed to be here.

The wide-open room, empty of furniture; crumbling, mildewed walls; corners kitted out with torn clothes and bedding; stolen and broken scraps everywhere - Chrome was looking at the floor in an old reflex, but she had the room mapped in her mind as her first home, and knew exactly what visitors saw of Kokuyo Land.

She wasn't ashamed of it. This was hers, Ken's, Chikusa's, Mukuro's. And every person she'd ever brought here had looked around and made her squirm with that hot, bone-deep, familiar feeling that said they did not belong here, and perhaps she belonged nowhere else and never really would. She'd told her friends she was coming here before she left the Vongola base - Gokudera still behaved as if he expected her to disappear for another few years, so it was best to be open about her whereabouts - but she hadn't intended it as an invitation.

All the panic was enough to make her forget for a second how Xanxus was.

"Chrome. How long are you going to be?" he said, impatient in the most ordinary way. He didn't sound shocked (someone would have researched Kokuyo Land for him, she thought, Mammon or Squalo) and when she had the courage to look at his face, he didn't look like he cared at all about any of it.

Of course.

Of course. She took a deep breath and smiled (and then smiled wider at how it made him look vaguely suspicious for a second, as always). If Xanxus stood in the Varia castle he would look the same as he did now. He wouldn't be immune to what Kokuyo Land lacked, but what mattered was that _he_ was here: everything became backdrop to that. He glared at her in demand of an answer, and that meant he thought of the surroundings as nothing but a backdrop to her as well.

"I need to check a few more things," Chrome said.

He made a snarling sound but stayed amenable, striding into the room to the couch. He stamped a foot on the seat of the couch and eyed it. "There aren't any bugs here," Chrome called over to him. "Mukuro-sama scared them away."

Xanxus stared back at her with a nearly bored look, but all the same she could tell he was wondering how the hell Mukuro could have done that. Chrome turned away with a sigh and a quirk at the corner of her mouth; Chikusa always was the only one to realise she had a sense of humour.

She worked with care, settling into the surprising peace in the atmosphere as she worked through the top floor's rooms. She couldn't thank Xanxus, not for a look - he'd be so dismissive he wouldn't notice any sincerity. MM always said that Chrome didn't know what to do with a man but tell him _thank you_.

The building had changed very little in the absence of their gang. Not much new graffiti, no signs of homeless people moving in. The reputation they'd left behind had held up these past four years when they'd mostly been away - and it probably helped that the building was collapsing.

Most of the stashes that she remembered were in place. Under loose floorboards and behind stacks of old furniture, Chrome dug up money in various denominations, two switchblades and packets of normal bullets, sewing utensils and gum (she put those back), and what she really wanted: the extras left over from the Estraneo experiments. The device that drove away bugs (or called them - Mukuro said that option was surprisingly useful) was one of a handful that the others had grabbed from the labs.

Then and now the guys tended to stick to the weapons they had been made to suit - eye, yoyos, animal channels - but Chrome was willing to use the other devices. They were usually willing to look the other way when she did, despite the old memories it brought up. There were any number of useful little things here to employ against the remnants of the Millefiore army. She left canned and dried food in return, a small, loaded pistol, knives, and topped up the money in yen.

Chrome came back to the room where Xanxus was reclining on the couch. His eyes went to her half-filled bag, the flicker of curiosity in his expression difficult to see behind the certainty that nothing in the bag could hurt him. He'd want to take a look at the loot, but he wouldn't ask. "That's it?"

"One more thing."

She fit her body into him and he fit back into the couch, kicking one leg onto the seat to give her the space to push closer, kiss deeper. More than only gratefulness, it was good to have him in her first home, and simply to have him. Pleased with the realisation, Chrome relaxed when Xanxus pulled away.

"Squalo made a dinner reservation," he said, because he always did have his priorities. Also, Lussuria got fussy and complained _a lot_ when Chrome skipped meals. "Last chance to have something halfway decent before we get to work on those Millefiore bastards."

He would have stayed with her if she said she'd like to, there in her first home, and he would have treated it the same as a castle. So she was happy to take him by the hand and pull him up and leave it behind for now, side by side.


End file.
